Five quick takes from AFLW Round 2

It was a busy week both on and off the field for the AFLW in Round 2. Here’s my five quick takes.

Dogs, Dees go to top of the food chain
Last week I said that the Brisbane Lions, off the basis of a single round of play, looked like the best team in the competition.

The results of Round 2 make it pretty clear that one week was not a good sample size to make the kind of call on – and of course, two weeks might not be either.

At the end of Round 1 I thought perhaps a poor Fremantle side had made the Dogs look overly good, and Brisbane’s belting of Adelaide was the bigger scalp.

Not so. Melbourne’s comfortable win over the Crows showed that last year’s premiers are well off the pace without Erin Phillips, while the Bulldogs proved their point in the best way possible with a win over Brisbane at home.

Some credit also has to go to Carlton also for being the only other team to be able to boast a 2-0 record at this point in the competition.

If you wanted to dissect their wins and point out problems and inconsistencies you could make an argument that the results flatter them a little – but wins on the board are wins on the board.

Still, if you were to make a tip on who we’ll see in the decider this year, those two clubs that put in some serious pioneering work to field women’s teams years before any others might be it. Wouldn’t that be a great result?

Of course, the potential concern for the Dogs would be that No.1 draft pick Isabel Huntington went down with what could be a serious knee injury after kicking two goals early in their match, and they couldn’t keep up the scoring without her.

It was a bad week for injuries across the league with Carlton losing their skipper Brianna Davey for the rest of the season to an ACL on Friday night.

Here’s hoping that Davey’s recovery goes smoothly, and fingers crossed that Huntington’s injury proves to be a minor one.

(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Adelaide need Erin Phillips, and they need her now
In a competition where only the top two teams progress to any kind of post-season, and there are only seven rounds, losing any of your matches is a real blow.

And while there are three teams who are 2-0 after the opening fortnight of the season, that means there are three also who are 0-2, including unbelievably the reigning premiers.

For GWS and Collingwood the hopes of playing in the grand final are probably dead and buried. The Giants could rightfully claim a bit of bad luck – they came so close against Melbourne, and might have had an entirely different result on Friday night under better conditions.

Collingwood, not so much. They’re just not very good.

If you had to pick a team that can do it from an 0-2 start out of this trio though, last year’s champs the Crows are the clear choice.

They’ve been missing Erin Phillips in their opening two matches, and they’ve put in two fairly uncompetitive performances as a result.

4.0 was a nice accuracy line from them this week but it belies the fact that in their opening two matches combined they’ve put up eight scoring shots to twenty seven.

Phillips’ quad injury was said to be one that would only keep her out of one game but it has now cost her two. If it costs her three, given that the Crows play the in-form Bulldogs on Friday night, that will likely be all she wrote for their season.

(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)

Could free (or cheap) sport be the future?
All kind of records were broken on Saturday night when more than 40,000 fans turned out at the new Optus Stadium to watch the first game of Australian rules football ever played there – and it was played by women.

Of course, likely the most significant factor in drawing that kind of record crowd is the fact the match give patrons a chance to check out the new stadium for the low entry price of $2.

The situation got me thinking about the future of sport and whether lowering the cost of entry to a game of footy might be the way forward.

Technology and media are only going to become more developed over time and make the home experience better and better. Speaking as someone who got rained on at Drummoyne on Friday night, the home experience definitely has its perks.

For those who weren’t there on Friday night this is why the game was delayed!

Someday probably not too far from now you’ll be able to plug in your VR headset and get a view from the boundary line without having to leave your home, wait in a line to go to the bathroom, or pay for a bottle of water.

It’d be kind of a shame if footy matches turned into two teams playing in an empty stadium in front of a high-tech camera, though.

So what about letting people into the ground for free, or a small fee? I know if I could go to a football game for no or low cost I’d feel a fair bit more open to buying a feed at the ground or splurging on some merchandise.

A lot of thinking outloud here and I’m by no means enough of an economist to tell you whether or not the numbers would add up well, but something to think about maybe.

In the meantime, congrats to both the AFLW and Optus Stadium for the record crowd and what I’m told was a great atmosphere at the game.

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

A memo on your memo, AFL – here’s why people really love AFLW
The AFL’s memo released during the week to AFLW coaches looking for a change in tactics seemed to suggest they don’t really have much of a clue as to why it is that fans enjoy footy.

Their insistence that the memo was not a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ despite it coming after just 240 minutes of footy in the new season – the equivalent of deciding to change AFL rules two games into Round 1 – also suggests they don’t really get the phrase ‘knee-jerk reaction’, but we’ll leave that be for now.

I’m very much the kind of person who enjoys an offensive, high-scoring brand of football more than the defensive game, and I’m glad that my club plays one. But I would support them no less if they didn’t.

The Richmond Tigers won the premiership last year with a football brand the bedrock of which was defensive pressure and strangling away the opposition’s will to score – and correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like plenty of fans still turned up to enjoy it.

Passion. Tribalism. Community. Those are the reasons why people turned up to watch the footy in the 19th century and they’re the reasons why we turn up now.

Yes, I’m sure you could find plenty of examples on social media of people complaining about the quality and scoring of AFLW if you looked for it (I’ve seen plenty without looking for it).

Believe it or not, Gillon, the vast majority of those people are not actually prospective hardcore AFLW fans just waiting to be converted – they just have way too much time and negative energy on their hands.

Aliesha Newman kicked a goal that you’ll be seeing on highlights reels for years to come this weekend and there were still complaints on social media about it. You can’t please these people, because they don’t want to be pleased. Don’t waste your time on it.

Celebrate the fact that you already have a passionate community around the women’s game – thousands of people buying club memberships to a sport where the entry fee is zero, just because they want to support it and be involved – rather than focusing on the whims of casual fans, and the AFLW will go far indeed.

Carlton don’t belong in a pride match
In September last year as the nation voted on whether or not to allow same-sex couples to marry, Carlton released a statement saying they would not be supporting either side of the debate.

Now, less than half a year later, the Blues AFLW team has confirmed it will play a pride match against the Western Bulldogs later this year.

I am certainly in support of a pride match – but it’s a poor decision to have Carlton be a part of the fixture when you could easily find two clubs who did support same-sex marriage to take part.

If you’re not willing to support something when there’s a real and present chance to actually do something about it, do you actually support it? No.

If Carlton are genuinely regretting a missed opportunity and looking to make up for it, that’s great – but they should say so publicly and find a way to take real action in supporting the LGBT community (there’s still plenty of work to be done), rather than go straight to what comes off as a disingenuous PR stunt.

Josh Elliott

Josh Elliott may be The Roar's Weekend Editor, but at heart he's just a rusted-on North Melbourne tragic with a penchant for pun headlines - and also abnormal alliteration, assuredly; assuming achievability. He once finished third in a hot chilli pie eating contest. You can follow him on Twitter @JoshElliott_29 and listen to him on The Roar'sAFL Podcast.

The Crowd Says (154)

I thought the Dees v Crows match was the highlight of the round and very entertaining to watch. The Demons look to be the real deal this year. They were very good last week and excellent this. They seem to have really gelled as a team: I suspect a combination of some very good players, more familiarity with each other, greater game sense and good coaching.

Crows look a shadow of last year without Erin Phillips. Also Sarah Perkins is not showing last year’s form.

Your comments about cheap entry to sporting fixtures are interesting. As one who got competely soaked in the open at Drummoyne the advantages of sitting on the couch at home to watch are obvious to me! But I do love the atmosphere and passion of being there live. It was a very different demographic at Drummoyne to the crowd at an AFL match, but it was still a very engaged crowd (although as a home GWS match, a little subdued).

Very sad about the knee injuries to Brianna Davey and Isabel Huntington. The loss of stars of their quality is a loss to AFLW as a competition, as well as to their teams.

Cheers Maggie. I really enjoyed the atmosphere at Drummoyne up until it started raining – felt just like going to country games with my brother as a kid. It’s actually kind of nice that the AFLW is at a point now where you it can have both a down to earth grassroots feel, but also be just as at home in a place like Optus Stadium.

“We do not discriminate at Carlton on matters of race, religion, gender and sexuality and it’s very clear to our players and our staff that we practise those values every day,” he said. “But we have formed a strong view that individuals make their own decisions.
“We will not tell our supporters how to vote.”

This is the statement that apparently stops the blues for being part of the Pride game? Seriously?

ihp, isn’t the very basis of any organisation to represent the views of its workforce? Besides, I don’t doubt that the football clubs and the AFL itself would’ve consulted with their employees before publicly affirming their support.

No not all. The purpose of any organisation is to generate the best value it can for its stakeholders. Social issues are by and large extraneous to the organisations purpose. I would doubt very much that the AFL consulted anyone, even in head office, before they publicly affirmed their support. Can you imagine Alan Joyce conducting a survey for all QANTAS employees before he publicly announced support for gay marriage? Never going to happen.

Advocating (i.e. the “Vote Yes” campaign) is not telling people how to vote. Certainly not at all in the sense that Carlton say it. Supporting a position is not telling people how to vote. To say otherwise is a clear copout. At a guess I’d say they were feeling the tug of the Elliot faction.

No, Macca. The YES campaign was just that: campaigning the reasons why someone should vote yes, not forcing the public to vote yes. Endorsing the yes campaign is an endorsement of those reasons, and nothing of the “you must vote yes” sort.

Carlton essentially stayed silent. They didn’t force anyone to vote, and advocated for an their fans to individually chose. That’s okay. They mimicked the yes campaign, without the support of same sex marriage. I can understand why they want to support the Pride game initiative – from a moral standpoint – but Josh is framing their inclusion in a marketing and publicity standpoint, from which I very much understand why it seems hypocritical.

AD – I never said they were forcing, I said they were telling people they should.

“They didn’t force anyone to vote, and advocated for an their fans to individually chose” and they said ““We do not discriminate at Carlton on matters of race, religion, gender and sexuality and it’s very clear to our players and our staff that we practise those values every day,”

” but Josh is framing their inclusion in a marketing and publicity standpoint, from which I very much understand why it seems hypocritical.” Only if you take the cynical view that it is only a marketing and publicity stunt and not a reflection of the values they clearly stated they believed.

Cat – “Strawman.” Not at all, just rebutting an allegation.

“Besides, none of those are trying to put on a Pride match.” Why not?

Dalgety – If you “advocated” for one decision and your mate took the opposite and it went pear shaped would you say “I told you so”?

Quite simply, Macca, I believe that Josh’s interpretation of this issue is just as valid as your interpretation. I personally think it’s fantastic that the Pride game exists in any form, but I can see the concerns over Carlton’s inclusion.

Do I think they should be shunned from the game? Well, no. I was just ‘rebutting’ your comments.

AD – This statement “If you’re not willing to support something when there’s a real and present chance to actually do something about it, do you actually support it? No.” and this statement ““We do not discriminate at Carlton on matters of race, religion, gender and sexuality and it’s very clear to our players and our staff that we practise those values every day” can not both be true, they can’t be “just as valid”. Its funny the blues are being criticised for “fence sitting” but they aren’t the ones saying both sides are equally valid.

“Do I think they should be shunned from the game? Well, no. I was just ‘rebutting’ your comments.” So you are just arguing for arguments sake?

I was rebutting your comment that the “YES campaigns sole purpose was to tell people how to vote”, which wasn’t true at all.

Also, I’m no linguistics expert, but that statement from Carlton never supported same sex marriage. It might have implied it did, but for all intents and purposes, it didn’t. So, on that basis, Josh’s personal opinion that they would be better candidates for the pride match is valid. Just as valid as your opinion that they should.

I respect Carlton for wanting to be in the Pride match, and respect their original statement from back in September. But I’m not arguing for the sake for arguing; I’m just trying to balance your apparent extreme objection to Josh’s opinion with what I think is a good summation of all sides.

Surely though a “pride match” should be the honour of a team that actively supported and advocated for a change when it was available.

As Cat said, Carlton sat on the fence. By not actively supporting it, and relying on tricky words to “not tell our supporters how to vote” (ie, saying it’s OK to vote No) they were in stealth advocating for the No campaign as much (if not more) than advocating for Yes.

IMO every sporting club, sporting head body should have been apolitical and lets its fans, players etc decide instead of taking a position, that in the main was about virtue signalling, it was quite pathetic TBH.

I don’t see football or KFC clubs advocating who to vote for in a federal or state election.

AD – “I was rebutting your comment that the “YES campaigns sole purpose was to tell people how to vote”, which wasn’t true at all” It is only not true if you believe your rebuttal that telling was the same as forcing.

“But I’m not arguing for the sake for arguing” Hmmm, you are taking a side you have said you don’t believe in.

“”I’m just trying to balance your apparent extreme objection to Josh’s opinion with what I think is a good summation of all sides.” Josh thinks the blues shouldn’t be in the Pride match, I can’t see why not given – Josh wasn’t summing up both sides, he took one side, I took the other, why do you need to “balance” anything.

DarrenM – “ie, saying it’s OK to vote No” – so it wasn’t OK to say No, we had this whole vote but if you vote no you are doing the wrong thing, is that really how democracy works? We want equality for everyone but your opinion isn’t valid?

The blues simply said we don’t discriminate, we believe in equality but people have the right to vote how they want to – how is that wrong?

The clubs were supporting a cause. they were not telling people to vote either way. also, supporting a cause is very different to advocating election candidates, which I’m pretty sure might be illegal.

@Macca

Telling, forcing – whatever. They were doing neither.

I’m not taking a side I don’t believe in. Honestly, I’m beginning to couldn’t care less. Josh believes something, you believe the opposite. I was more concerned with you angling what you were saying with something that wasn’t super accurate.

Also, I never said Josh was summing up both sides. I was trying to sum up both sides.

Also, about your reply to Darren – the. statement. isn’t. wrong. It was a good statement, but it didn’t endorse marriage equality when they had an opportunity to. There are better candidates for a pride match.

Fremantle Football Club statement – “At a club level we believe whatever decision our members and supporters choose to make regarding the survey is a personal choice which we respect and do not seek to influence.”.

IMO that is the statement all clubs should have made. Now that the precedent has been set do we now when the Government holds a referendum or plebiscite look to AFL clubs for their position. Should AFL clubs get involved in votes on voluntary euthanasia, death penalty, republic or monarchy etc. Sport should stay out of politics.

Darren M, should the marquee game on the Queens Birthday weekend be the honour of clubs that support the Monarchy?

It depends where you see basic human rights beginning and ending, ATM there is no real equality because legally i cant have multiple wives, i don’t see clubs virtue signalling for that, in fact many people who voted for gay marriage are disgusted by the thought of group marriage, it just goes to explain the power of propaganda put forward by the so called “rainbow people” over the last 20/30 years, we have been conditioned to accept it.

Why don’t we have a referendum etc on group marriage – i wonder what the AFL’s position on that would be ?, my guess is they would run the same way as the polls.

Lets face it, if 3 or 4 or 5 people are all consenting and in love what is actually wrong with legalising group marriage ?.

The words Rainbow and Dreamers have been taken, but i bet the planning committee can come up with a suitable marketing word/slogan to entice the masses to vote for group marriage.

* my comment is obviously a bit facetious, but IMO as the post above from Col from Brissie states – sporting clubs should stay out of having a postion on these matters.

Cat – “There is a huge difference between picking the next MP and standing up for basic human rights that every single person should be able to enjoy” – you do realise that the MP’s could have solved this problem without a vote and given everyone that basic human right?

AD – “Telling, forcing – whatever. They were doing neither.” If they weren’t telling people to vote yes they weren’t doing their job. What do you think they were doing?

“I’m not taking a side I don’t believe in” I said the blues should be allowed to be in the Pride game, you said, “Do I think they should be shunned from the game? Well, no.” but yet you argue.

” but it didn’t endorse marriage equality when they had an opportunity to” They explicitly say ““We do not discriminate at Carlton” that is an endorsement of equality on all levels.

Col from Brissie is 100% correct, we should at every opportunity seek to divide sport from politics..

In the gay marriage debate the Freo FC position was 100% correct and one that should have been followed by the AFL, NRL and should have also been followed by QANTAS, BHP and anyone else that virtue signalled for it, alternatively i would hold the same opinion for a sporting body deciding and speaking publicly on behalf of all their members that they were against gay marriage.

I never said they shouldn’t host the pride match. I agree with Josh that they are better candidates, in much the same way I agree with you that Carlton’s statement is a good one. In the context of this discussion, though: Carlton’s statement doesn’t hold up compared to some teams who were more proactive in their support for the cause.

Also, in terms of the vote yes campaign, I don’t think we’re ever going to agree on the exact terminology. They were not telling people how to vote. They were advocating for a very clear angle – vote yes, obviously – but I’m not sure they proceeded into a “vote this way” mentality. If they did, I’ll admit my argument is flawed.

I’m sorry if I haven’t been clear, but I’ll just say this: if this wasn’t about Carlton, you wouldn’t be so viciously defending the statement.

@Aligee

I can definitely see your perspective on why companies should stay neutral, but I don’t see the harm in them promoting a cause they believe in. Sport and politics are incredibly interconnected, but that’s an argument for another time. I will fully agree that Fremantle’s statement on this matter was the best example; buuuut I don’t see the need for such a vicious outcry whenever a company advocates for a cause.

AD – “They were advocating for a very clear angle – vote yes, obviously – but I’m not sure they proceeded into a ” mentality” Read what you said there – they were saying “Vote Yes” but not telling people to ““vote this way” – that clearly is a nonsensical statement.

“I never said they shouldn’t host the pride match.” Exactly, you said the exact opposite where Josh explicitly stated “Carlton don’t belong in a pride match” so again you are arguing for the sake of it or at best you are arguing to say “you are both right” which doesn’t make sense.

” if this wasn’t about Carlton,you wouldn’t be so viciously defending the statement.” Viciously? How have I been “vicious”. But the more interesting question is if this wasn’t Carlton would this be raised at all? There was no outcry when the Hawks, Freo and West Coast made the same statement and numerous other clubs stayed completely silent (only about 50% of clubs were explicitly YES).

“compared to some teams who were more proactive in their support for the cause.” Why aren’t those clubs involved? Perhaps they are more happy to pay lip service by saying we support YES than actually pushing for a Pride game?

I got the terminology around the ‘yes campaign’ wrong, sure. That’s on me, sorry ’bout that.

Carlton had a good statement, which is what the essence of this argument is about, but it’s obvious it was a bit wishy-washy. Fremantle stuck to a “we won’t comment on this” script; other clubs fully endorsed a yes vote. Carlton tried to split it down the middle, and whilst it was a fine statement, Josh is 100% correct when he says they didn’t go all in in their support, and that’s what raises the question about why they’re hosting the pride game.

Nonetheless, I’ve literally agreed with you multiple times, just as I’ve agreed with Josh. I’m fine with Carlton hosting the Pride game, but largely I just don’t care. Josh posed an interesting point, you posed a solid counterargument. Cool.

The reason this has been infuriating is completely based around the fact YOU got the terminology wrong (Vote YES is clearly an instruction ie telling) and YOU argued about something that at best you don’t care about and at worst you don’t agree with but most likely you want to fence sit on and keep everyone happy. They were your actions.

As for “that’s what raises the question about why they’re hosting the pride game” the answer is in the very first post I made “We do not discriminate at Carlton on matters of race, religion, gender and sexuality and it’s very clear to our players and our staff that we practise those values every day,” and as I said in my first response to you, it is simply “a reflection of the values they clearly stated they believed.”

AD – I would also say it is time for you to start being an adult and start having an opinion! No more I can see both sides of the argument, what do you actually think. Think about the proposition, formulate an opinion and be prepared to support that opinion with fact.

In this situation you say “I’ve literally agreed with you multiple times, just as I’ve agreed with Josh” but we are on opposite sides of the argument, agreeing with both of us is not possible and frankly is “infuriating”.

Seeing both sides of the debate and forming a deep and complex understanding of the issue, is in fact more “adult”, less emotional and rigid and ultimately more courageous (particularly in this “only a strong opinion is valid” world).

Dalgety – I didn’t say don’t see both sides of the debate, I said weigh them up and then make a decision which is better. In this case it is impossible to agree that Carlton shouldn’t have the Pride game and that they should – yet AD agrees with both. That isn’t being an adult it is simply placating.

Plus this is an opinion website, it works better if you have one.

And the issue isn’t a ““only a strong opinion is valid” world” it is that uninformed opinion is treated equally with informed. The solution isn’t to have weaker opinions but better informed ones.

AD – Look at my posts to that roarer, always fact based, always asking for clarification on how he came to his assertion, always pointing to the evidence that disproves his assertion. All Adult behaviour.

As for you, today we had a simple yes/no proposition and you agreed with both sides, you should at least ask yourself why, especially given your chosen field.

I literally explained why I agreed with both perspectives (or, at the very least) understood both perspectives.

“Carlton essentially stayed silent. They didn’t force anyone to vote, and advocated for an their fans to individually chose. That’s okay. They mimicked the yes campaign, without the support of same sex marriage. I can understand why they want to support the Pride game initiative – from a moral standpoint – but Josh is framing their inclusion in a marketing and publicity standpoint, from which I very much understand why it seems hypocritical.”

I’m sorry if I said some dumb things throughout the morning, and I’ll admit it wasn’t my best argument, but I’ve been dealing with a lot more today than this feeble online squabble.

You explained why you agreed with both sides but now go the next step and weigh up which one you think is best.

To me the marketing and promotion angle falls pretty flat when there is no revenue to be made out of game while the fact the pride game aligns with the blues stated values makes it a plausible and logical argument.

You don’t have to agree with that but just make sure you can support your opinion either way.

And you don’t need apologise to me – we can have a robust disagreement today and agree tomorrow.

“On the vast majority of occasions however, they are mutually exclusive.” That is an odd definition of mutually exclusive – you believe the vast majority of occasions an opinion can not (not is not can not) be both strong and informed?

And my point is you don’t make the opinions less strong you make them better informed.

All too often strong opinions are emotionally formed, the stronger they are, the more deep-seated their emotional roots (not all, just most). Therefore there’s more emotionally at stake at having them disproved.

So all too often strong opinions are opinions forming supporting evidence, rather than evidence supporting the forming of opinion. In these cases, certainty is a weakness, rather than a strength, in meeting functional results.

Dalgety – you are using mutually exclusive wrong – that is an either/or statement.

Things that are mutually exclusive are always mutually exclusive – they can’t be for “vast majority”, they either are or they aren’t. They are 2 separate circles.

Things that aren’t mutually exclusive are like 2 circles that overlap to a degree so you end up with 3 groups – in this case strong opinions that aren’t informed, informed opinions that aren’t strong and strong opinions that are informed..

Again your argument about emotions etc is irrelevant to the point- my point is you don’t make the opinions less strong you make them better informed which solves your issue.

“All too often strong opinions are emotionally formed, the stronger they are, the more deep-seated their emotional roots (not all, just most). Therefore there’s more emotionally at stake at having them disproved.”

Is that your strong opinion or a more informed one based on scientific research? Perhaps you can link us some medical journals better informing us all?… I’m certainly no scholar in this field, so I’d love to see what you have on the topic.

If not, it kind of reads like a forthcoming script for the next episode of Dr. Phil.

Ahh how “coincidental” for you to show up on the topic Rick. And really, you’re saying that you’re not sure if emotions play a role in opinions? I know mentioning “emotions” might throw you off, but…. hahahaha

Ok just for you I’ll throw some stuff off the top of my head, I don’t think it needs anything more than that Macca [everyone can tune out for the rest of this paragraph if you like]. Well there might be something on the limbic system, but I’m sure there are a plethora of neurological articles outlining the role of the brain in opinion formation. The limbic system (key emotion area) is ever present throughout our lives and we can see the role that heuristic play. The hippocampus, key in memory formation, is right in the limbic system. Emotions are a high energy event in the brain so we fall all the more on efficiency strategies like heuristics to economise on brain activity (the emotion/survival areas of the brain such as the amygdala are more prominent in the survival system, so get prioritised when it comes to energy allocation).

Emotions are easy to spot when people prioritise “winning” the exchange over staying on point. So they’ll pull out the party tricks, like red herrings, straw men, kitchen sinking, look for get-out-clauses and fine print, quibble over side issues, make false equivalencies, ad hominem attacks and any variety of logical fallacies. Heightened emotions will also become overly attached to categories and hard boundaries, again because of the neurological efficiency. (hmm this bit on logical fallacies seems to be particularly relevant right now, although I’m not sure why)

Speaking of which, in quibbling about “mutually exclusive” Macca, you’re overgeneralising a category to mistakenly seemingly assert that all things in it are identical. Categories can include subsets which have different properties from other subsets of the same category, which in turn can be mutually exclusive from another thing, where the other subsets of the category are not (i.e Category = Fruit, Subsets = Apples, Oranges). Capice?

Dalgety – look who discovered Google, one minute you don’t know that 2 individual things can’t be mutually exclusive the “vast majority” of times and next you are discussing subsets like you know what you are talking about.

As for spotting emotional arguments, we would be looking for things like splitting hairs over whether the Vote YES campaign was telling or advocating and continually ignoring the point that arguments need to be better informed with waffle about emotional arguments?

Read the first paragraph of this article under ‘Significance’ at the start suggesting otherwise. Even the research out there is questionable. That’s the brain for you — still a complete mystery in many ways.

It’s also a very good read. It challenges the traditional view of emotional feelings being innately programmed in subcortical areas of the brain.

I should have included self-refereeing as a strategy too I guess. Don’t be silly Macca, “telling” as implied by Carlton was like ordering, advocating is like saying here’s why we think voting yes is a good idea. But again that’s a sideline from the topic here and now. Macca someone can agree with a few points, yet not care enough to agree one way or another, that too is fine and perfectly within the realm of adults. More so than just picking an opinion for the sake of it, or because someone tells you too, which would entirely be an emotionally driven process.

You seem to be just throwing random stuff around with that first paragraph, in what seems like muddying the waters to hide your tracks, as it’s not really making much tangible sense to what it claims to be describing.

Rick, is that just some random article you just dredged up on emotion and consciousness? The article does seem to be interesting, but what they outline regards the mechanics of emotion is entirely consistent with what I said about our response to emotion being integrated into the opinion-forming process. Try and vague-fake your way through it all you like, but you’ll have to be more specific if you what that to relate in some way.

Dalgety – “telling” as implied by Carlton was like ordering, advocating is like saying here’s why we think voting yes is a good idea” Oh yeah, I forgot that when the AFL changed their sign to YES they also covered the walls with detailed well reasoned arguments and that political campaigns much prefer to get into the complex issues rather than just take out full page ads with just the words “Vote Yes”. Political Campaigns (and Ad campaigns in general) are completely designed around “an emotionally driven process”.

As for hiding my tracks, why would I want to do that when the tracks clearly show that out of the two of us I am the only one who knows what mutually exclusive means?

“someone can agree with a few points, yet not care enough to agree one way or another” But those people generally don’t post repeatedly over an extended period of time and the points they agree with aren’t polar opposites.

I referenced that article because a) I had to read it recently and b) there is no consensus in the medical fraternity regarding emotion and the limbic system. This is just one article questioning this belief. Now I don’t personally know because I’m only required as a student to know the very basics, at present, in this field. I’ll probably never be interested in this field.

You made this statement (which I commonly see you do in this area):

“So all too often strong opinions are opinions forming supporting evidence, rather than evidence supporting the forming of opinion.”

I want to see you reference some evidence to suggest you’re right. I’m tired of you making definitive statements using nothing more than fancy words to confuse people on this site.

You have made a massive assumption here and made it sound like fact to the reader.

Once again, I want you to reference solid evidence to support your argument in this field. I’ve provided evidence for my argument i.e. we don’t really know.

I’m educated enough to understand this and never would make a statement like you have done.

Might sound like a strange thing to say coming from a writer, but I place a lot of stock of action, little to none in words. To me that statement is cheap words and no action. There are clubs who did more and they deserve to be the ones holding a pride fixture.

“We do not discriminate at Carlton on matters of race, religion, gender and sexuality and it’s very clear to our players and our staff that we practise those values every day, But we have formed a strong view that individuals make their own decisions.” – Just empty Words

We do not discriminate at Carlton on matters of race, religion, gender and sexuality and it’s very clear to our players and our staff that we practise those values every day, and we support the YES campaign” Clear and decisive Action.

We feel so strongly about keeping politics and sport seperate that we won’t come out in support of homosexual rights. But we don’t feel strongly enough about keeping sport and politics seperate to give up our Pride game.

‘What position do the Tigers have on constitutional recognition of aboriginals?.
Richmond supports the Recognize campaign.

It’s a shame Richmond didn’t put out a statement supporting ssm. I suppose they thought their captain doing an interview about his support of same sex marriage was enough?

‘Finally why is it that you think the gay pride round is “political”?’

I actually don’t think same sex marriage or homosexuality in general are ‘political’ subjects. When I used the word ‘We’ in my first comment I was putting myself in the position of the Carlton board or at least John Elliott. Somebody who says that ‘politics’ and sport shouldn’t mix is a hypocrite if they make money off mixing ‘politics’ and sport.

“Richmond supports the Recognize campaign.” They support a campaign that has been wound up! That really is decisive action!

” I suppose they thought their captain doing an interview about his support of marriage equality was enough?” Seems a bit of a cop out to me, the club won’t have an opinion but we’ll let the captain express his personal views!

“I actually don’t think (marriage equality to avoid to moderator) in general are ‘political’ subjects.” Exactly but voting clearly is political – so the blues stayed out of the political side but support non poltical.

“When I used the word ‘We’ in my first comment I was putting myself in the position of the Carlton board or at least John Elliott” John Elliott has nothing to do with the Carlton board and you assumed the board were thinking the exact opposite of you – doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Good comments regarding technology and the suggestion of lowering ticket prices is a good one and in time I’m sure it will be considered. The AFL needs to keep engaging with the fans while it’s currently healthy.

I’ve been advocating for a while that technology will change how modern sport is viewed by future generations, including our current youngest generations.
Competition for viewership is not only going to come from other current sports but I strongly believe we are going to go full circle and face strong competition from ancient and medieval sports via the growth of virtual technology.
We need to keep engaging with the fans while they’re still there.

Yup, the lower ticket prices suggestion is a good one. That’ll especially help families and younger fans, I would imagine. I’d be more inclined to be heading to the grounds, or to spend the money travelling to watch my team if I knew the game would be affordable and accessible, with more cash on hand to splurge in some merchandise or food.

On the eventual technological advances of sports – I for one am not looking forward to it. I know a lot of people my age are excited and enthused by all these new technologies, but I’m really not. Whilst I appreciate many technologies, I hate the fact that we’re now reading books on out phones/Kindles (give me a real book anyway!). I despise the fact that my younger sibling will be typing their exams this year, rather than writing them. It just doesn’t seem right.

And if we’re eventually going to sit in our lounge rooms, with a VR headset projecting us to the sidelines and watching the game without leaving our houses? Well, I’ll accept it, but I won’t like it. That’ll be the day this sport dies a little, in my eyes.

Such a luddite, AD 😉 I’d kill to have been able to type exams rather than handwrite them – partially because my handwriting is horribly illegible, secondly because typing is much faster and doesn’t leave my hand swollen up to twice the regular size after a short exam.

It’s defintiely a challenge facing the game. I’m going to be curious to see which AFL clubs get in on the ground floor of VR first.

Ha! That’s a fair point; maybe I’m just bitter because I had to write out four exams when I was finishing school.

But, yes: as much as VR will be a agonisingly annoying part of the game, even I will admit that it’s a massive opportunity for clubs and the league. They’ve got to try and strike a balance between using it as a opportunity and not letting it ruin part of the game that is the most vital: the crowd experience.

VR has been supposedly on the cusp of changing the world since the 80’s. Still aways off now too I reckon. They really need to come more to grips with the human sensory system and it’s links to our sense of balance. Augmented Reality is more ready to take-off sooner rather than later.

I hear what your saying Dalgety but on the other hand technology has still come a lot further since the 80’s than many of us imagined and it wasn’t that long ago.

The big difference between now and the 80’s is the people who made huge sums of money through tech companies are now reinvesting that money in areas like theoretical physics as they are well aware of the areas that need to be realised to go further in the tech world.

I think the biggest, nastiest issue that the AFLW might have that the AFL doesn’t is knee injuries. We know the stats, women get knee injuries about four times more often than men (depending on what you read), and we’re really seeing it now. It was a great round of footy, but I personally feel pretty miserable about it after Davey, and particularly Izzy went down… I was so looking forward to seeing that kid play this year, after recovering from her previous knee, and this just sucks. It’s one of those psychological unknowns for the AFLW, how it’s going to impact fans, players, everyone — seeing your stars going down in agony at this rate is just demoralising for everyone. Certainly we can hope that the AFL becomes a world leader in funding research into prevention and recovery for women in particular, but no amount of research is going to change that female hip-to-knee angle, and unless someone’s about to develop cyborg-style synthetic ligament replacements that are stronger than the original (and allow players to jump over houses, maybe) I can’t see this changing.

I share your feelings – enjoyed a great round of footy but with huge disappointment for those two knee injuriies My heart sank each time they ran out the stretcher – you know it is bad when that happens.

Hope there will be a Round 2 summary from you, I really liked last week’s.

Yes the only way forward is for the AFL to shovel money into women only knee research, when they already know that women’s knees are physiologically more likely to go than men’s. It’d be cheaper just to give them all knee braces.

I wasn’t really aware of that statistic until seeing it mentioned in a few places this week, and it is very alarming given the length of recovery needed from a serious ACL, and how much more impact that might have on the life of a semi-professional athlete. My understanding is that netball has a dedicated program around this – would be great to see the AFL start one of their own or join forces.

You’re spot on. Only economic illiterates could support the concept of free professional sports. Even country leagues need to charge entry to make their clubs viable (of course they don’t get any support from the AFL because all their money is being funneled into some sort of expansion).

Not charging a gate fee, does not equate to “free professional sports”.

Plenty of business realise the flow on effects that can happen with free stuff in this day and age, which allow them to leverage the added traffic and goodwill into funds. It’s about not being stuck in the “way it’s always been done” kind of thinking so rigidly.

Having said that, I can’t see the AFL moving away from the “membership model” anytime soon. Getting subscribers is a huge revenue, not to mention information gathering, model in the data age.

There was no direct comparison of Google to a stadium if you were interested or capable of exploring and understanding the issue rather than colouring in cartoonish sketches, you might’ve made a bit more of an interesting case.

What it’s fair to say that economic models are changing and organisations still gain profit from not directly charging for their service. Once upon a time, people thought investing in companies like Google was madness because they weren’t charging for their services and people weren’t willing to pay. Google found alternative income streams that fed of their “core” (free) service and ultimately most valuable commodity, data.

The fact is for stadiums in Adelaide and Perth most of the revenue doesn’t come from people buying a ticket directly from the stadium, but rather from subscriptions (i.e. memberships) to tenant clubs of the stadium. This is double the value for the AFL, the stadiums and individual clubs, because with subscriptions/membership comes more data, more commitment (i.e. longer term income streams) and more engagement from their audience/market.

There was no direct comparison of Google to a stadium if you were interested or capable of exploring and understanding the issue rather than colouring in cartoonish sketches, you might’ve made a bit more of an interesting case.

You made the argument that Google doesn’t charge for their search engine therefore it’s economically sound for a professional league to not charge entry and take a big loss every game on ground hire charges.

What it’s fair to say that economic models are changing and organisations still gain profit from not directly charging for their service. Once upon a time, people thought investing in companies like Google was madness because they weren’t charging for their services and people weren’t willing to pay. Google found alternative income streams that fed of their “core” (free) service and ultimately most valuable commodity, data.

I don’t think anyone ever thought investing in Google was madness. Do you remember the tech bubble?

The fact is for stadiums in Adelaide and Perth most of the revenue doesn’t come from people buying a ticket directly from the stadium, but rather from subscriptions (i.e. memberships) to tenant clubs of the stadium. This is double the value for the AFL, the stadiums and individual clubs, because with subscriptions/membership comes more data, more commitment (i.e. longer term income streams) and more engagement from their audience/market.

Clubs in SA and WA are charged a lot of money to hire grounds. They need to fill those seats in order to offset the cost of hiring the ground.

If VR technology advances to the point where the majority of people watch virtually from home, why would you need to build billion dollar stadiums? As usual you pick and choose the bits you want to remember to include.

You and ihp are correct; albeit you’re correct as it stands right now.

Twenty/thirty years in the future, things will be different. Technology will be a greater competitor to clubs bottom lines than attendances, and technology which is immersive and makes it comfortable to watch the game in consumers own homes will be making stadiums more and more empty. Free tickets might be a stretch, but cheaper tickets or packages would probably be inevitable.

I’m not trying to be pessimistic, but despite you trying to frame it to the contrary, ‘leagues that struggling with attendance’ will be doing so through no fault of their own.

Yeah imagine if people had some sort of screen that could beam the game down to them to watch while it was being played; like if the game was somehow teleported. We could call it Tele-vision.
If we ever get to the point as a society where watching TV is preferable to engaging with people then that will signal the end of our society.
From an economic point of view they just wouldn’t bother building stadiums.

I think the free entry model for AFLW is actually pretty smart, you don’t have to be Einstein to work out womens sport does not attract big crowds across most sports and you blokes are definitely not Einstein!.

Therefore using traditional suburban grounds and hoping to recoup through food and grog sales, merchandising and sponsorship is good business sense, i have seen it explained to you a number of times, but you just keep churning out the same gaff.

Not only that but the 1000 or so new womens/girls teams across the nation in the last year or so is hard to quantify for the game moving forward – just as a matter of interest what do you think the value of that is to the game ?

We may not be Einstein, but we certainly have better comprehension than you. We were talking in a broader sense, not just women’s footy. Women’s footy is only economically viable because they’re either playing at stadiums that have been paid off (suburban grounds) or they’re being subsidised by the men’s competition.
Food and grog are all supplied by contract vendors – other than the cost of buying them and the cost of employing people to sell them, much of the profits go to vendors, not to the AFL. The AFL makes its money from gate takings, where they have a largely fixed cost base; the profit margin on tickets sold rises significantly as more tickets are sold, and is always much greater than selling food and grog.
As far as the value of women’s teams to the game is, I don’t think it’s great. Realistically, they’re going to take up resources that would otherwise go into promoting the game to boys and men. Boys and men will drive the revenue of the AFL going forward – they will become the elite players who will put (paying) bums on seats, not girls and women.

Pretty sure Einstein barracked for Carlton and he understood like most intelligent people the significance of AFLW and what has come with it, below, sideways and above which seems to be totally lost on you.

I understand the AFL and WAFC did not want the new stadium in Perth to be over 60,000, perhaps attendance will go down, but their line of thinking was making the ground smaller would allow them to keep membership prices and a membership waiting list bubbling along.

I am more than happy walking down the road to watch my local WAFL team but much more hesitant battling public transport and crowds to an AFL game, i am more than happy on many occasions watching on tele and walking to my fridge to grab a beer or even at this time of the year having a swim in the pool at half time than sitting in the sun at the footy.

Not sure i am in a majority, but i know plenty of people who feel the same way.

Perhaps as we move to closer city apartment living the old inner city smaller traditional grounds will come back into popularity opposed to the last 40 or so years when everyone moved out to suburbia.

2017 Fremantle – 11 home games – 32,375 average. 356,122 total for 11 games = 122,378 empty seats for the season
2017 West Coast – 11 home games – 36,751 average. 404,258 total for 11 games = 74,242 empty seats for the season

Both below 43,500 capacity of Subi – exactly what I said. If you don’t like facts, that is your problem.

The facts are this – there were or are around 9/10k of people on a waiting list for Eagles memberships, when your lucky day arrives you may purchase 4 seats, invariably most people want 3 or 4 seats, not many people go the footy by themselves or buy a single membership, ultimately that means that there are really between 20,000 and 40,000 on the waiting list.

Subiaco saw many people for one reason or another not go, there is a distinct middle aged supporter base go to Subi and people would hold onto their membership through thick and thin even when O/S for years for example for fear of losing them.

People will not sell back tickets to the WAFC if they are not going to make it to a game, they have invariably been sitting with the same people for over 20 years and will not inflict any D heads taking their seats for one match and then copping the ire next home game.

The Government has effectively commandeered 10,000 seats at the new stadium which the Clubs cant sell and i quote ….. the allocation of 10,000 “daily admission tickets” in the 60,000-seat stadium will be broken up into five categories — 1000 tourism package seats, 1385 stadium membership seats, 424 complimentary tickets for the football club playing on the day, 191 complimentary tickets for VenuesLive and 7000 general admission tickets.